We don't need to tell you that despite the 1995 Disability Discrimination Act becoming law in 2004, a large number of UK venues are still inaccessible to people with disabilities. How frustrating is it to not be able to access a particular public building, making it impossible to catch your favourite band or the latest blockbuster movie? Or even worse, to be left waiting outside a venue because you couldn't get the correct information regarding accessibility before you went?
aims to address this. The website, founded by Patricia Froomberg, gives its users a platform to either scathe or praise venues for their accessibility. It also hopes to make the owners of inaccessible venues sit up and take notice.
There's already a pretty big database of venues on the site so as well as adding your own reviews, good or bad, you can check out your chosen place before you go. They're searchable by venue name, location or category. Hotels, public buildings, gig venues, restaurants, shops - you name it, it's probably covered.
Check the place out before you go:
If, like most of us, you're a day behind because of the bank holiday and haven't got your Friday night organised yet, here's something to add to the calendar. A new nightlcub called Wheelies officially opens its doors this Friday, the 1st September, at 9pm UK time.
Owned by Simon Stevens, who has cerebral palsy, Wheelies aims to make guests feel comfortable about disability as well as dancing, drinking and just plain having a good time.
But this isn't a normal nightclub - you can go clubbing without even leaving the couch because Wheelies is totally virtual, and it's only accessible via your computer. It's part of 'SecondLife' - a virtual, online 3D world built entirely by its 500,000 residents worldwide. ()
There's lots happening on the launch night - a live DJ, a live singer and free food. Although how you eat virtual food is something we haven't quite worked out yet...
For more information you can contact Simon at simon.stevens@enableenterprises.com
This Friday (25th August) is the closing date for nominations for the 2006 Remploy "Leading The Way" Awards: .
Now in its tenth year, the awards scheme is, "all about acknowledging, encouraging and advising organisations, of all sectors and sizes, who are adopting best practice and progressive thinking in the employment of disabled people."
There are two categories of award: organisational (small employer, medium employer, large employer, corporate employer, and one for organisations that promote learning and development of disabled people) and individual (business person, Jobcentre Plus employee and - oh, finally - disabled employee). To be eligible to nominate itself, an organisation must employ at least one disabled person.
Now, call Lady Bracknell a jaded old cynic if you will, but experience has taught her that there can be a huge difference between an employer's perception of how well it treats its disabled staff and the perception of its disabled employees themselves. And, given that the winners will benefit from an "externally verified recognition of their equal opportunities policies" and a "positive image of their organisations to existing and future customers", it's a bit of a worry that the online application form doesn't require a statement from a disabled member of staff confirming that everything their employer has just claimed about its marvellously inclusive policies is actually true. Whatever happened to "nothing about us without us", eh?
But perhaps Lady Bracknell is missing something. After all, Mat Fraser appears in all the photographs of last year's ceremony. And, given his reputation, it seems unlikely that he'd put his name to any initiative which relegates disabled people into a supporting role.
Fed up with your own non-celebrity wheelchair? Want to be able to tell everyone you meet that, even though you may not have appeared on television yourself, your wheelchair has? Got more money than Lady Bracknell could shake her stick at? Then look no further:
You've got until the 8th of September to place your bid for this "Permobil wheelchair from an ER episode featuring James Woods playing a man stricken with ALS. The wheelchair is signed by Mr. Woods and members of the ER cast." Not only that, but they're including a speech augmentation device as well. All the profits made will go to help people living with Lou Gehrig's disease. Bidding starts at US $2000.
There's something worrying Lady Bracknell, though. As you can see from one of the , all the cast signatures are on the comfy soft leather seat part of the wheelchair. So, if you use the wheelchair, no-one will be able to see them. And you risk rubbing them off, unless they've been signed with some kind of superbly sweat-resilient marker pen.
So does this mean that the organisers are expecting the winning bid to come from someone who wants the chair as part of a collection of TV props, and who will just keep it to look at? And, if so, isn't that rather a waste of a very high spec chair?
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The Ouch Weblog has been running for some time and we're now looking for a bit of feedback to help us find out what you think about it. The ´óÏó´«Ã½ is asking
the same questions on all its blogs over the next few weeks.
The feedback will be used to help us make any changes deemed necessary. So this is your opportunity to shape its future.
To help you provide feedback, we've included a few questions (below) to help when posting your comments. You don't need to answer all of these questions,
they're just here as a guide to help us get the kind of answers we're looking for.
Q: What 5 words would you use to describe this blog and what it means to you?
Q: What are the best bits about this blog?
Q: Anything you're not so keen on? If yes, then do give any suggestions you may have to improve it!
Q: What do you think about the frequency of our posts and the length. Do we have a right balance here?
Thank you all for your comments, they will be really useful to us!
You can either post your answers directly to the blog or email us instead.
The internet search engine that took the world by storm has now developed a new site that is designed to help visually impaired screenreader users find websites that are most usable.
Tap in your keywords and returns results based on how accessible the site is thus making the web an easier place to be.
course, we won't forget that beat them to it some time ago.
This is cool and interesting. Always one for da gaming, crippled Monkey almost jumped out of his crippled socks with glee when he came across the following.
is a kind of accessible alternative to the retro arcade game we all know and love.
The key word in inclusive game design is 'configurability'. Many mainstream games could have accessible workarounds so that disabled people, using whatever game control suits them best, can alter the game for best playability.
Access Invaders can be played using any or all of the following: keyboard, mouse, joystick, game pad and binary switches. Additionally,
for people who can use only one switch, the option of automatic scanning is available. So pretty much anyone can play this game, visually impaired, deaf, peple with learning difficulties, stamina or limited motor function. Tha'ts inclusive design.
Read Ouch's guide to Switch Gaming and we hope to be bringing you more accessible gaming guides really soon. Now go and blast those baddies!!!
Traveling to another town or another part of town by car? Got one of those nifty Blue Badge things that (sometimes) enables you to park in handy walk-saving areas and the like?
Well why not try out Directgov's handy new online to help locate parking bays near you or across the UK.
The website says: "This mapping facility is the first of its kind and will enable people to search by postcode or town/area name for designated Blue Badge parking bays, parking
bays that fall on red routes in London and accessible petrol stations. The service will also outline the address, number of spaces, any time restrictions
or special notices that apply to individual allocated Blue Badge parking bays."
Gille Legacy is a Canadian artist. He has CP and has no use of his arms or legs. So he paints with his nose. Gille's website
is currently under construction, but there's already a lot of information about Gille and his art in its pages. Rather frustratingly, it's one of those sites where the URL remains the same whichever page you're visiting, which means that Lady Bracknell can't provide you with links to the best bits. However, if you use the menu to the right of the screen you can navigate to biographical details by clicking on "The Nose Man"; to examples of Gille's paintings by clicking on "By A Nose/Art"; and to examples of his poetry by clicking on "By A Nose/Poetry".
Video interviews are coming later, as is a store section from which you'll be able to buy an assortment of poetry books and nose-created greeting cards.
(As Gille says, "I mean, we artists have to eat, right?")
Gille and the love of his life, Sandi, are getting married on the 13th of August. So, if you're signing the guestbook on his site, you may want to take the opportunity to wish them both well.
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As part of the housmates' task this week, set Glyn and Aislene the challenge of learning 30 phrases in sign language.
Delighted with their progress, the two went to the diary room to tell Big Brother. Amidst the chat about how much fun the whole process was, Glyndelivered a corker line when he said,
"The next blind person I see I can do my sign language."
Read the exchange which followed .
Aislene laughed and put the poor guy right but honestly! He is the one who is supposed to be the most intelligent of all the contestants.
Pete still gets our vote here at Ouch, and judging by the amount of emails we get in our inbox from teenaged girls, he's not being discriminated against because of his disability.
The response to our 'deaf pretender' item on the latest Ouch podcast has been amazing.
Mat and Liz interviewed a 'pretender' or 'fettishist' on the latest show (edition 5). She goes by the name of Shy in various online communities. She can hear perfectly well but has purchased her own hearing aid from eBay and likes to pretend she is deaf in public.
She was at pains to tell our two presenters that it's not a sexual thing for her, it's more out of respect for deaf peple and the fact that she finds the very strong deaf culture rather cool and wants to be a part of it.
It has spawned a very long and involved discussion on our messageboard. It's well worth a read. We have also received a number of emails about it.
blogged about it on her 'page of joy' last Friday. She wrote:
Errrrm, is it totally wrong i'm in two minds about this woman? Because really, i should be in one mind, and that mind should be saying NO NO NO NO THAT
IS WRONG ... On the point about her leaving town to do it...ok yeah if you know its wrong why do you do it. But not all people even have that, they think they have a
blank cheque to do and say what ever they want because they're 'only curious about people with disabilities'. And that, i felt, wasnt what she was about.
Back in the '80's, a handy little office tool was born. "While you were out" was a telephone style post-it pad, which made passing on messages as simple as ticking a few boxes, saving you both time and energy.
Ever wished you could dash off something similar to hand to well-meaning people trying to give you advice that you never asked for, and actually don't want?
Well, now you can, thanks to Sharon Wacshler, whose "Clip 'n' Copy - a handy response to all those unsolicited helpful suggestions" appears to be just the ticket.
This and much more disability humour, including some of Sharon's cartoons, can be found at her website. Sharon reckons that humour is the ideal way to get across the reality of life with a disability to non-disabled people, and that her postcards are a perfectly portable way of doing it. There's text descriptions of most of them too.
The people at ´óÏó´«Ã½1's continuing hospital drama Holby City are looking for two experienced deaf actors, who are fluent in BSL. If you wish to take part, you must be available between the 28th of August and the 26th of September. Judging by the descriptions of both parts on offer, being a man would also be a plus.
Des Reed is in his 50's/60's. He runs a school which the council wish to close down and has a reputation as an excellent teacher. He gets into a row with his son about who will dress up as Father Christmas.
Simon Reed is Des's son and in his 20's/30's. He is a teacher at the school but wants to get into information technology.
So, if you think that you are the person for the job, either Email the casting director, or post your Photo and CV ASAP to Glenn Bexfield, room N202 ´óÏó´«Ã½ Elstree, Clarendon Road, Borehamwood, WD6 1JF
Best of luck to all.
Here's something which will no doubt gladden the heart of many an Ouch reader.
describes itself as 'a "hall of shame" to expose people parking illegally in disability or mobility parking spaces'.
They hope to
• raise awareness of how often we are unable to park because someone else is using "our" spaces,
• stigmatise disability parking abusers
• track how often disability parking offences take place,
• tar and feather repeat offenders (only kidding),
• see active and regular participation from visitors to the site. list end
Once you've registered with Caughtya, you can have hours of fun taking photographs of the vehicles you see parked illegally in disabled parking bays and
then uploading them on to the site once you get back to your computer. (Lady Bracknell suggests, however, that you might want to exercise a degree of caution
if the vehicle's owners are around: it's just possible that they might take exception to you gathering photographic evidence of their misdemeanours. As
the Caughtya authors say, "If you think there's any chance someone might become aggressive or violent at you taking pictures of their vehicle, don’t do
it !!! Your personal safety comes first.")
At the time of writing, there have been no infractions posted from the
Lady Bracknell is quietly confident that the Ouch community will jump (metaphorically speaking, of course) at the chance to rectify that omission.
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